Page 62 of Dark King Daddy

I took a bite because I needed something to do.

Chocolate. Too sweet. Good.

“You’ve wanted him for years,” she said.

“Yes.”

“How much?”

I gave her a look.

“Don’t be coy now. We passed coy several exits ago.”

I put down my fork.

“I have imagined him touching me.”

“That was assumed.”

“I’ve imagined obeying him.”

Her expression stayed gentle.

“That’s different,” she said.

“Yes.”

Desire tightened low in my body simply from saying it.

I hated the timing. I hated that grief and danger had not erased it. That Daniil in funeral black, catching my elbow at Papa’s grave, had made the wanting worse.

“I’ve imagined his voice when he praised me,” I said. “I’ve imagined what it would feel like to disappoint him and have him correct me. I’ve imagined being held after. Not having to explain what I needed because he noticed.”

Zoe’s face softened.

I looked away.

“I want to know him,” I said.

Zoe waited.

“I want the man I saw with his family today. I want the man who carried Sergei out of a fire and called it practical. I want the man who looked at me across the table like I was the first thing he’d wanted in years.”

“And the Pakhan?”

“I don’t know.”

“They’re the same man.”

“I know.”

That was the problem.

That evening, Papa’s office was dark except for the lamp on the desk. Anton sat behind it.

He looked wrong there. He would continue looking wrong until one day he did not. I did not know which possibility hurt more.

Uncle Kostya was gone.